


there's no room at the round table for people like us

by kwritten



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:02:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a brief ficlet with a potential post-canon life for Logan/Veronica/Weevil ((with a brief allusion to Logan/Lilly/Weevil)). Not even really sure how I feel about this right now... possibly I hate it and won't leave it up for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's no room at the round table for people like us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youcallitwinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcallitwinter/gifts).



_If there’s someone I’m going to drag into battle with me…_

And then her voice lilts like it always does. And Mac laughs back, wiping away tears that Veronica can’t see, a cellphone pressed against her ear.

Because it is a joke and it always was.

Veronica Mars doesn’t drag anyone into battle; she barrels forward alone without calling out.

(Wallace squeezes her hand and presses his cheek into her cheek, calling out a message to their girl through the hunk of metal that only rings when the battle is done and the wounds are healed and they never see the blood, but they mourn all the same.

It seems as though they have always done this. As if they were created to pretend as though the world is supposed to work this way.)

 

 

The phone is cold in her hands, the whole world always feels so cold.

Head tall.

Shoulders squared.

Back straight.

Every hair in place.

The battle isn’t talking your way through a security checkpoint, or out of an arrest, or wearing the wig, or flirting with the bartender, or sneaking down a hallway, or talking someone down from a roof.

That’s just the prelude.

The battle is the second just before she writes out the report, the moment before she makes the phone call to tell them all that she’s okay, the brief moment when her fingers linger over names in her phone she can’t call, the effort it takes her muscles on her face to move into a smile.

 

_If there was anyone I’d drag into battle with me…_

There’s a smile in her voice as it drifts off charmingly.

She is always charming.

It’s an armor.

He laughs back, he always does.

He knows – just as they all know – that it isn’t true.

The unspoken words will never be _it would be you_.

He always cries when the phone rings, because he knows he’s already too late.

 

Loving Veronica Mars is knowing that you can’t walk into battle with her.

 

Loving Veronica Mars is knowing how to crash into her battle and force her to let you stay.

 

It’s knowing that the battle is the silence on the couch with a bowl of ice cream, watching the news and not crying. It’s rolling out of bed and not staying in it. It’s a peck on the cheek over the newspaper, instead of sex on the kitchen counter. It’s a smile and a quick shake of the head to hide the tears; it’s smiling back as if you didn’t notice.

 

It’s knowing that the phone call always comes too late.

 

 

 

“What are you doing here?”

“If there was anyone I’d follow into battle…”

“You seriously can’t be here.”

“You seriously can’t be here.”

“Don’t play me right now, I don’t have the time.”

“Or the energy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You just are showing your age lately.”

“I remember when you were the leader of a motorcycle gang.”

“I remember when the bags under your eyes didn’t have friends you tried to hide with cheap makeup.”

“You were just as annoying back then.”

“Your ass was just as skinny.”

“You need to leave.”

“I like it here.”

“This is my job, idiot.”

“And it’s not mine?”

“You’re a mechanic.”

“Sometimes.”

“If you come in there, you could die.”

“If you go in there without me, you _will_ die.”

“No—”

“I’ll kill your skinny ass myself.”

 

 

The kiss is hard and rough and it’s always hard and rough and it tastes like nostalgia, like they are teens again and there isn’t someone waiting for them at home and this isn’t life and death.

 

 

Was there a time when a kiss in a dark alley wasn’t about life and death?

When have their lives ever not been on the line?

Were they ever just simple teens living simple lives?

 

 

Loving Veronica Mars is knowing that the battle is keeping the memories from overwhelming every moment.

 

Loving Veronica Mars is knowing that there is no winning because the memories are what keep you both standing.

 

 

They don’t die. They make sure of it. She’s quick with her tongue, he’s quick with his fists.

They’ve been fighting like this for a long time.

Back to back their faces to the world, daring someone to tear them down.

 

Only this isn’t the real fight.

It’s never been the real fight.

It’s just always been easier for the two of them to pretend it is.

It’s always been easier to slip out of physical danger together.

 

 

Neither one will admit that it’s all a cover.

 

 

“Hunny I’m home.”

“Sweetheart dinner is ready.”

“How was work, Princess?”

“Goddamnit I told you to stop calling me that.”

 

There aren’t kisses all around. That’s not the way they work.

 

There’s bloodstained clothes stripped off in the hallway, a first aid kit beside the roast, muddy footprints on the tile. There’s laughter sometimes, there’s a harshness to their teasing sometimes. When they have the energy to raise their voices into words.

 

Sometimes there is silence.

 

Three plates in the sink and six empty beer bottles in the recycling.

 

 

Mostly there are hands reaching out – checking for bruises – guarded eyes searching out new wounds. Mostly there are the soft sounds of life that float up and keep them going.

 

 

“Next time I’m going undercover.”

“No you’re not.”

“Who would make dinner?”

“Shut up!”

“You aren’t coming.”

“Yeah, you aren’t coming.”

“You, either.”

“Me?!”

“Hahaha.”

“Everyone shut up I’m tired.”

“I’ll always be there.”

“No you won’t.”

“I said _shut up_.”

 

 

Loving Veronica Mars isn’t about the mud and blood and undercover personas and no touching in public and the secret late night phone calls.

 

Somewhere along the way loving Veronica Mars became about loving someone else – _and maybe that’s the way it had always been between the two of you or maybe it was the way it was supposed to be once and now you’re getting a second chance_ – or maybe it’s about sharing or a memory.

 

But mostly it’s about knowing she’ll always expect you to leave.

 

_If there was anyone I’d push out of my battle, it’d be you._


End file.
